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Madlen King at LRQA takes a post-Doha look at the framework for various approaches and new market mechanisms (FVA/NMM)

Date:

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Madlen King, Global Head of Climate Change and Sustainability LRQA was part of a panel on day two of Carbon Expo discussing a post-Doha look at the Framework for Various Approaches (FVA) and New Market Mechanisms (NMM).

Madlen King highlighted the confusion between FVA and NMM, “Referring to them together is a mistake as they are so different. We are all very much aware of the difficulties in reaching agreement for an international approach, hence we have this fragmented market of domestic and regional schemes. The World Bank quoted yesterday 21% of global emissions are now under market instruments and 50% under development. In addition, we now have development of NMM, spoken about in the singular which increasingly we are referring to in the plural.”

King went on to talk about how NAMAs [Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions] further complicate the picture. “This fragmentation is taking us away from the aim of achieving a global carbon market. We need a consistent approach so there is transparency in regions to drive trust.

In the session I attended yesterday – Catalysing a Globally Connected Carbon Market - FVA was never mentioned – surprising given that this is what it could deliver if designed well. FVA needs to be a top level focus as we still need flexibility for countries and their local economic situations but it needs to be a model for governance and a definition of common principles.”

The panel discussed the minimum requirements for one internationally based standard; “I do think that there needs to be a top level scheme to enable flexibility at a local level. Undoubtedly though, there is a difficult balance between integrity and flexibility so an oversight approach to ensure the environmental integrity, sustainable development and net mitigation is key to all of this,” said King.

King went on to call for the need to “define consistent standards requirements for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) so we can have comparability of the data generated and ultimately avoiding double counting which will be one of the major issues. “

The need for a common registry to ensure consistency and accuracy of units being generated was discussed with King suggesting one route forward where “the UN have a means of inspecting the different schemes worldwide to establish that the relevant criteria have been implemented and that the units are comparable and if so, then the credits may be traded in an equal way.”

King also highlighted the Japanese Joint Offset Mechanism as a clear example of how local schemes could link into international markets; “the Japanese are actively considering that when their own demands have been met, could there be linkage into international markets. That is a very encouraging step and I am very happy to hear that,” she concluded.

The panel closed by talking about the fact that the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has provided valuable lessons but that there is a need to move ahead and to have a long term vision – with specific mention of the work that is being done with the private sector - to ensure the success of these initiatives. “In parallel, we need to build on what already exists,” said King. “Data variation is still rife between countries; we need to take the best elements and success stories at a local level and link these into an overarching international framework to support a global carbon market.”

In the pursuit of reaching higher standards and transparency in OOCL’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reporting, OOCL is very pleased to announce its achievement in not only meeting the GHG Scopes 1 and 2 inventory verification requirements that it announced last year, but also for Scope 3 which focuses on indirect emissions associated to air travel by employees of its Hong Kong office and as defined in the “Greenhouse Gas Protocol – A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard”.

Lloyd’s Register (LR) is pleased to announce that OOCL has taken a further step forward in their Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reporting by extending the scope to container terminals, namely Long Beach Container Terminal, LLC. in the United States and Kaohsiung Container Terminal in Taiwan. The verification work was undertaken by LRQA, a member of the Lloyd’s Register group (LR).

Local Office Details

Lloyd’s Register and variants of it are trading names of Lloyd’s Register Group Limited, its subsidiaries and affiliates. Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Limited is a limited company registered in England and Wales, registered number 1879370. Registered office: 71 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 4BS, UK. A member of the Lloyd’s Register group.